Fortified Live - Talib Kweli, Mr Man, Yasiin Bey

The highest caliber make it a night to remember like Shalamar

Then escape to Havana with Assata I do what I gotta

Planes get shot down in Cuban air space over the water

I got insight it’s a clear case of reading your aura

Man what you got for us as my Black men stand in line like a chorus

Makin' these MC’s our sons like Horus

I’m always taking shots like a Japanese tourist, get the picture?

Flyer than Keyser Soze and no exposure

I’m sippin wishing well water imported from Pluto

That’s why my eyes is glassy, so ain’t got to ask me

The interplanetary Illuminati move your body

I trekked the stars first, so fuck Kirk and Scotty

I threw basement parties on the Mothership

Now I’m on planet Earth on some other shit

Many 'habitants of this world be strivin and struggling

Tryin to eat food and keep the rights to they publishing, huh

Ghetto red hot, man that shit is like bubbling

Can’t get no peace cause the Beast keep troubling

Youth, they oppose and the blows they be doubling

Nike heads is trife and the shots, they be thundering

Ways and customs don’t make any sense

They be givin me stress and they test my maintenance

Use the sand and the Ummah as my sustenance

No, this style will never lack, melanin’s my evidence

In order to effective, with your words you must be selective

Cause showin and provin is the Prime Directive

Movin those who are outdated with vernaculated thought, so

Every time I take a turn MC’s take a loss

My point across, I gotta get to where I want to be

As the wickedest public speaker since '73

Or '74, which was the year I first touched ground

As the physical manifestation of sight and sound

So gather 'round, to hear the profound brown vomiter

Absorb the sonic energy manifestin through your monitor

The livin proof, I make the truth sound clear

Mr. Man, in nine ether represent right here, check it out

This once in a lifetime like a Halley’s comet

Yo, we bring it to Medina like the prophet Mohammed

Peace be upon he, and, we MC’s

Speak the fortified live exhibit level degree

Yo, what’s wrong with this picture?

Don’t it seem bugged

MC’s is high on they supply, sounds like they takin drugs

Y’all trippin like mescaline and killin the feeling like penicillin

Switchin' to Lionel Rich' and dancin on the ceilin

Go ahead and be a heroin, your own mind

Fuck your internet, coke is it when you on line

Smokin dirty weed, ignorin the medicinal herbals

So we in your ass like you was Richard Gere and we was gerbils

You get stepped on like crack vials by ghetto children, plus

Swept under the rug, we turnin niggas into dust

You done came out of the earth, what your life worth?

When you get left with what you had on the day of your birth

Ha… Yo, it’s the super scientifical, high-powered prolifical

Lyrically a miracle, mentally I’m physical

Massively I’m critical, verbally invincible

These kids wanna battle but the material’s pitiful

The only original, wicked individual

Whenever I rhyme, I break it down into syllables

Simply because it’s coming straight out of Brooklyn

It sounds so out of sight I got the blind people lookin

It’s Mr. Man the act, boy what?

You get stolen

I’ll cut your ass in half and leave you with a semicolon

We cold-crushin MCs that’s gold-rushin for the cheese

They see a flash in the pan waitin for royalties

But kings and queens get overthrown when they grab the microphone

Shootin videos in homes that they know they’ll never own

I guess they cannot work alone, they forever with crew

L sparking, steady barking bout the wildness they do

Posin in photographs shot at complimentary angles

Be playin Mr. Tuffy when they feminine like bangles

Practices is fraudulent, fallacies record to tape

Step in my zone, your spot’ll get blown like Watergate

Wait, my blastin rate is past a state of rappers who procrastinate

Mr. Man is great, so every time I rhyme, I fascinate

Masses hate to have to wait for me to unload

So I flip into my mode and rhyme long like a road

See, I drop the greats like clumsy waiters drop plates

I got rhymes by the crates to erase the duplicates

Cause, I blow wack rappers out like afros

My shit is so phat it be stretchin my asshole

But huh, that’s not the point because I’m better than most

I make MCs Wonder like bread but then, bread gets toast

It’s like that, Mr. Man, Mos Def, and Kweli

Represent for every single real MC, you don’t stop

(Yo, yo, yo, this is the mighty Mos Def)